Trailer
Plot summary
Years with the New York Yankees have left Jack Elliot with a low batting average and a younger slugger waiting to take his job. The club sends him to Japan, to the Chunichi Dragons of the Central League, and the manager, Uchiyama, expects him to follow the team's rules and training methods. Jack argues with Uchiyama, ignores the way the Dragons play, and alienates his teammates, while his hitting gets worse. Max "Hammer" Dubois, another American on the Dragons, hears out his complaints but tells him he should become a team player. Hiroko, the team's public relations agent, becomes the person he spends his free time with.
Cast
- Toshi Shioyaas Yoji Nishimura
- Toshizo Fujiwaraas Ryoh Mukai
- Naoki Fujias Takuya Nishikawa
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Mr. Baseball (1992)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Tom Selleck had already been cast when Fred Schepisi came onto the project, and an unusual clause in Selleck's contract gave him final say over the approval of the script. That resulted in the involvement of another screenwriter, Kevin Wade.
- Kevin Wade's contract expired midway through production, so he worked on the script for only about three weeks, leaving many loose ends that Schepisi eventually had to sort out himself.
- The takeover of Universal Studios by the Japanese conglomerate Matsushita complicated matters: Universal was concerned about issues of cultural sensitivity in the depiction of Japanese characters, so it recruited John Junkerman, an experienced writer and director of films about Japan, to rework the story.
- Uchiyama, the manager of the team, is very closely based on Senichi Hoshino, who managed the Dragons from 1987 to 1991. The scene in which Elliot taunts an opposing pitcher who refuses to throw him a strike by gripping the bat upside down came from real life: Randy Bass did it in 1985 while challenging Japan's single-season home run record.
- The film has found a niche audience among foreign professional baseball players joining a Japanese team, who use it to prepare themselves for what they are about to experience; players interviewed by The New York Times in 2022 said it still accurately portrays the differences between American and Japanese baseball.
- The Detroit Tigers cap Tom Selleck wears in the last scene of the film is the same cap he donned while playing Thomas Magnum in Magnum, P.I. Selleck, who hails from Detroit, Michigan, is a lifelong Tigers fan and a former minority shareholder of the team.
